Tax resistance

A tax resister resists or refuses payment of a tax because of opposition to the institution collecting the tax. Often tax resistance comes from pacifists, conscientious objectors or members of religious groups, such as the Quakers, who choose not to fund violent government activities. It has also been a technique used by nonviolent resistance movements, such as India's campaign for independence led by Mahatma Gandhi.

Quotations

• ?Withholding payment of taxes is one of the quickest methods of overthrowing a government.? ? Mahatma Gandhi
• ?He or she who supports a State organized in the military way ? whether directly or indirectly ? participates in the sin. Each man old or young takes part in the sin by contributing to the maintenance of the State by paying taxes.? ? Mahatma Gandhi
• ?I have heard some of my townsmen say, ?I should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico, ? see if I would go;? and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war?? ? Henry David Thoreau
• ?If only each King, Emperor, and President understood that his work of directing armies is not an honourable and important duty, as his flatterers persuade him it is, but a bad and shameful act of preparation for murder ? and if each private individual understood that the payment of taxes wherewith to hire and equip soldiers, and, above all, army-service itself, are not matters of indifference, but are bad and shameful actions by which he not only permits but participates in murder ? then this power of Emperors, Kings, and Presidents, which now arouses our indignation? would disappear of itself.? ? Leo Tolstoy